Proponents of widespread standardized testing were instrumental in determining who crossed the American economic divide, as college graduates became the economic winners in the postwar era.

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On June 17, 1901, 973 students sat down for the first standardized college entrance examination administered in the United States; the students took the exams all week.

They took nine essay tests, in English, French, German, Latin, Greek, history, mathematics, chemistry and physics, which were administered at 67 locations in the U.S. and two in Europe. Their answer books were hand-graded by experts in each subject area on a scale of excellent, good, doubtful, poor and very poor.

Standardized testing slowly evolved in Europe, with a handful of universities in Spain, France and Germany ...